So Fresh: Rift Promises “Instant” Adventure!

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“NEW: INSTANT ADVENTURE! Just add a handful of players and taste piping hot fantasy action, just like momma used to make.” Something like that. Well, actually Trion Worlds don’t really explain it like that, as you can see in their dev diary, below. They do, however, explain that the new Action On Demand stuff will allow you to drop in and drop out seamlessly, without causing your group any issues in their progress: “The new “Instant Adventure” button teleports players to Stillmoor or Shimmersand where challenges scaled to party size await. One minute you could be purging a nest of cultists with a small group … the next you’re fighting alongside dozens of players in a massive raid against the Blood Storm’s mightiest forces.” Sounds like there’s some clever maths involved! (Don’t forget to read Dan’s huge interview with the Rift team.)

All MMOs need this kind of content, WAR did it well with their PQs (there were too many of them though). If I were designing one I’d make sure that all my content especially the raids were capable of scaling depending on group size that would be labled casual mode, there would also be normal and hardcore modes where specific groups compositions were required like trad MMOs.

RIFT embraced itselfs with great graphics and a rich world to explore. This counters any purpose to explore and be amazed by a beautiful game. Sadly. The feature is great, but the execution horrible. Less LFR/Instant-Action/Teleport to BG’s in MMO’s please. More server/world events!

This sounds a lot like the event system in Guild Wars 2, but with some bits missing. World of Warcraft has already stolen the transmutation stones from that, too. I wonder if GW2 will have any unique features left, because whatever they announce, someone seems to have pinched a couple months later.

It’s a good feature, particularly for Rift because the game already offers rewards for good old fashioned exploration of the world. Besides, sometimes you want hot action fantasy, other times you want cool, cerebral, slow-paced solo fun.

I bailed out of Rift once I saw things headed in this all too familiar direction, and I’m glad I did. They’ve already begun their foray into testing the waters with micro-transactions (oops, I mean “account upgrades”), making everything easier than it already was, and focusing on raids/gear as opposed to what made the game different. Now they’re falling into yet another sad trope of what has become the MMO industry these days where they create a large game world to explore (ok maybe not in this case, but there was a time…) and then spend the rest of development finding inventive new ways to pull people out of it and into their own personal instances.

Honestly, I’d prefer going back to forum wars over who was going to raid what boss on what night and setting up raid calendars over the “everyone lives in their own little world” style MMO we have now…